In hard disk manufacturing, a process of quality inspection of magnetic disc is crucially focused on finding traces of scratch that occur on the surface by various sources such as production process, machinery, tribology or recording head. It may affect the efficiency of magnetic disc’s read/write ability. Many approaches have been proposed to detect the scratch by either destructive or non-destructive testing. In this study, it shows an analysis of signals from the detected scratches on the magnetic disc by reflection light method, using a CD pick-up head. It works by producing an incidental laser beam to the surface and then detecting it by a photodiode detector. The results showed that when the laser beam is incident onto the magnetic disc with/ without scratch, reflecting lights to the photodiode are different and the signal changes according to the intensity of the incidental/reflecting lights.

A non-destructive technique to inspect a scratch on all magnetic disks in the beginning process of hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturing by using CD and DVD pick-up heads as the detector is proposed. It requires a 100% disk inspection of micrometer-sized scratches in a quick measurement with low cost inventing. Most of the previous studies were in static state but this is the first time to be done in dynamic study using the microcontroller in order to promptly serve for industrial utilization. The size, position, and shape characteristic of scratches are examined using light reflection technique. The results show that, when the laser beam is targeted on a magnetic disk in a position, either scratch or non-scratch, the reflected light intensity differs. The DVD pick-up head can detect the width and the surface characteristic of the scratches, which is similar to the results from scanning electron microscope (SEM) for all scratches sizes less than 100 µm. It is also found that using a DVD pick-up head provides a better resolution of shape characteristic and roughness of scratches surface than a CD pick-up head. Hence, the scratch size of 10s µm scale on the magnetic disk can be accurately characterized by this proposed technique, which can be further utilized for magnetic disk inspection in the hard disk drive manufacturing process.